by Wim Coleman
“Have I been saying that a lot?” Renee’s voice snapped Marianne out of her reverie.
“What?”
“I keep saying that I miss those old days,” Renee said. “Don’t you?”
“Yes—I mean, yes, I think you’ve been saying that a lot.”
“Sorry. I keep forgetting that you might remember things a little less fondly.” Renee sipped her drink for a moment, then said, “You haven’t told me anything about life in the Golden Kingdom. What’s it like?”
“As far from bohemia as you can get.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it would bore you half to death.”
Marianne’s attention was caught by a figure outside the lounge, just visible through the glass above their booth. She leaned forward slightly to see better. Yes, it was that detective she had encountered upstairs. With a sharp intake of breath, she ducked back, hoping he wouldn’t look her way.
The man strode by without once glancing in her direction, his large form flickering through the stripes of plain and frosted glass as he walked along. Then he veered across the lobby and out of her sight.
Renee watched Marianne with interest. “And who was that?” she demanded.
Marianne didn’t answer. That awful dark blotch flashed in her mind again. And now the cop was right there in the lobby. What if he just popped in here during his break for a cup of coffee? Would he seize the opportunity to grill her again? What if she told him, as she probably should, why the stain had shocked her? Would he insist that she accompany him to the police station or the precinct or whatever the hell it was called?
“Marianne!” Renee said, more insistently.
“Renee,” Marianne said abruptly. “Let’s go someplace else.”
“Why?” Renee answered with surprise.
“I want to see your new condo.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You’re gonna hate my condo and you know it. Who’s that guy you were watching?”
“I wasn’t watching anybody,” Marianne said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Renee just planted her elbows firmly on the table. “Don’t give me that. I can tell when something’s important. I’m a radio journalist. I get paid for being nosy.”
Marianne sighed. “I saw something really weird on my floor. When I left my room and went to get the elevator … Renee, did you see Auggie’s animation? In the Snuff Room?”
“Oh, sure. I hardly ever miss his act.”
“Well, do you remember how it looked—that wall with a design on it? And then the blood? The red color splashing across it?”
Renee nodded.
“It was upstairs. On my floor. The very same scene. The same design on the wall and the same pattern—exactly the same stain across the wall.”
“You mean he got the wall design from this hotel? Are you sure? I don’t even remember what it looked like. Some kind of round thing, right?”
“It was a circular garland with the image of a sun inside.”
“Well, you’d remember something like that.”
“Renee, I’m telling you the wall had a red splatter across it exactly like the one in Auggie’s snuff.”
“Fantastic!” Renee laughed. “Then Auggie, or somebody else—maybe a serious Insomnimania fan—is a midnight paint slinger! Or something.” Renee affected a low and melodramatic voice. “‘Late at night, while even the beautiful people sleep, a shadowy figure stalks the halls of the Quenton Parks, armed with a squeeze bottle of catsup.’”
“No!” Marianne protested. “It was a murder scene. A real murder. You know, the one in the papers yesterday.”
“You mean the guy who got slashed up late Tuesday night? And it happened here! In your hotel! That’s right, it said so on the news! Wow! Then Auggie gets his scenarios from real life!”
“How could he? Were there any pictures of the bloodstained wall? Do you think the hotel would have allowed that? How could Auggie have known exactly what it looked like?”
“Come on, there must have been pictures. He could’ve just checked the papers.”
“The man was killed in the middle of the night Tuesday. Auggie’s snuff was on Insomnimania the next night. He had to hear about the story, see the pictures, make the animation, and upload it. Doesn’t that sound like kind of a stretch?”
“Well …” Renee hesitated only for a moment. Then she grinned. “I’ve got it! I’ll bet Auggie is a cop.”
“Isn’t Insomnimania kind of expensive for a cop?”
“Oh, come on! Some of those guys rake in plenty. More than the monthly salary. Some of them aspire to the ranks of the wealthy, and I’ll bet some of them make it, too.”
“A crooked cop?” asked Marianne.
“Maybe. Just maybe. It would explain how he knew about the murder. Whoever he is, I’ll get him to talk to me. Auggie’ll tell me just about anything. We’re old buddies, you know.”
Marianne laughed. “Oh, sure. Great buddies—fights every night in Ernie’s Bar. You guys are part of the entertainment.”
“No, really. He confides in me a lot. And lately he’s been hinting he’s gonna show me some Insomnimania secrets. ‘I’ll reveal to you untold mysteries,’ he said. He keeps talking about some sort of subterranean region called the ‘Basement.’”
“Gothic.”
“Ain’t it, though? He calls it his ‘sanctum sanctorum’ and says he spends a lot of time there. ’Course, he could just be making it up. He does like to brag—and braggarts make for terrific interviews. God, I’d love to get this Auggie guy on the air.”
Marianne laughed, then stopped short. She didn’t like the hint of obsession she saw in Renee’s eyes.
This Auggie “guy”?
Auggie’s not a “guy.”
Auggie was only a computerized cartoon, just like all the others in Insomnimania’s garish world. True, Marianne had watched those cartoons quarrel, reconcile, have drinks together, have sex together, and even marry. But it was all make-believe, like some kind of virtual, real-time soap opera.
Or is it?
Renee had just spoken about Auggie as if he were an actual person. Was it possible that some users believed in it all, just like all those crazed and credulous fans who believed in professional wrestling?
The stain flashed through Marianne’s mind again, first as a ragged cluster of red spots, then as a brownish blotch of distinctly non-virtual, distinctly protoplasmic blood. She saw identical trickles of color follow identical curves.
Like the computer world somehow leaking into the real one.
But then Marianne shrugged off the thought as silly.
Renee suddenly slid across the bench.
“Where are you going?” Marianne hissed.
“Up to your floor. I want to take a look at the murder scene.”
Marianne held her friend’s arm firmly. “We’re not going back there. I almost got myself arrested.”
“No kidding?”
“There was a cop there—a really pushy detective,” Marianne said. “He’s the one I just saw go by in the lobby. I didn’t want him to see me again. He caught me staring at the stain, and he started asking a lot of questions. He’d eaten something rancid for lunch.”
“Oh, so you got close enough to smell his breath?”
“Renee, knock it off. He’s probably still around here somewhere. If he finds both of us up there gaping at that wall, he’ll haul us in for questioning.”
“Oh, come on,” Renee laughed. But when she saw the expression on Marianne’s face, she groaned in surrender.
They paid their bill, and Marianne led the way to a door exiting directly to the street.
Like a fleeing criminal. Maybe I ought to be arrested.
00011
KUDZU
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br /> “Chicago?” Nolan snapped. “Do you realize what the weather’s like in Chicago in the middle of January? They’ve got this big goddamn lake there. It’s artificial. They put it there just to blow cold air across town and freeze visitors’ butts off. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. That’s the kind of creeps these Chicagoans are.”
Nolan was leaning across Captain Bruce Coffey’s desk. The captain leaned back in his chair, puffing briskly at his cheap cigar. The smell was vile as always, almost suffocating, but nobody ever raised a voice in complaint. Any division strictures against smoking went unenforced in the captain’s office.
Clayton stood quietly behind Nolan, noticing for the thousandth time his partner’s uncanny ability to fill up a room. Everything about Nolan struck Clayton as wide—not actually fat, although his gut did display a slight roll, but ruggedly broad. His mouth, nose, and brow were all outsized and a bit primitive. Of course, the captain was big in his own way, too, but his weight was distributed somewhat lower on his shorter frame.
“Nasty weather is one of those little hardships a dedicated detective must sometimes endure,” Coffey chuckled in his gravelly voice, leaning back in his chair.
“I’ve got other cases going,” Nolan added. “Why can’t the cops there do their own homework?”
It was clear that Nolan and the captain were enjoying the battle. Clayton wondered where his partner got the energy.
Come on, guys. Let’s finish up the routine.
Clayton looked around the office. All the chairs, with the exception of the one occupied by the captain, were stacked with folders and papers. Memos of one kind or another were pinned three deep to every inch of the pale green bulletin board and had crept onto the nearby walls.
Like kudzu. The voracious vine had shrouded whole trees in South Carolina, where Clayton’s grandmother still lived. He was struck by an image of papers covering the desk, the walls, the lamp, and even the captain with a leafy blanket, hiding all details, smothering all activity.
“Think of it as a diplomatic mission,” Coffey said. “We’ve got fences to mend. The L.A.P.D. doesn’t exactly shine when somebody takes an axe to a wealthy and prominent Chicago citizen in one of our finest luxury hotels and we can’t even come up with a suspect.”
“Actually,” Nolan replied mildly, “forensics is pretty sure the weapon was a knife.”
“Whatever,” the captain snapped back with a glare. “As of today, you don’t have other cases going. You get my point, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I get it,” Nolan said, shuffling his feet edgily.
Clayton glanced around uneasily, as if the pinned up papers had rustled behind him. “So I guess I’ll go home and start packing too?” he asked.
“Nope. You’re staying right here to direct the follow-up on local leads.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Nolan complained. “Clayton stays warm and cozy while I head off to the Arctic tundra to tangle with the Cossacks—on a weekend. My weekend for Chrissake! Everybody I need to talk to’ll probably be out of town.”
“Don’t worry, Grobowski. I talked to the folks in Chicago, and they’re already checking out the whereabouts of family and associates. They’ll be available.”
“Look at all this electronic crap!” Nolan exclaimed, waving at the fax, the computer, and various other digital devices. “Why can’t we get everything we could possibly need—”
“I want you there! I want you to look people in the eye and get answers yourself, just like always. I want to know what you think, not some ball of chips and wires.”
“Okay, Captain. That’s what you want, you got it.”
There was a brief silence, then Coffey shifted in his chair. “Move the papers,” he growled. “Sit.”
Clayton sighed. He had hoped to be out of here by now. Both detectives picked up stacks of papers off the chairs and piled them on top of other stacks elsewhere in the office. They sat down and took out their notebooks.
“So what do we know about the Quenton Parks murder?” Coffey asked.
We don’t know shit, and he knows it. He just wants to rub our noses in it.
But they went over it again.
Yesterday, they had interviewed more than two dozen people at the hotel and turned up nothing. Today they had returned to the scene, but useful information had been no more forthcoming. The lack of an apparent motive or any other leads or suspects was a bad sign.
True, a young, blond, buxom, and extremely anxious woman in room 636 had come forward and admitted that she had been in bed with Mr. G. K. Judson a very short time before his death. Ms. Gail Printy said she had met Mr. Judson just the day before.
“Call girl?” Coffey asked.
“Naw, anything but.” Nolan laughed.
“Just a kid,” Clayton explained. “Nineteen, rich neurosurgeon’s daughter. Wants to make it in Hollywood, so Daddy puts her up in a fancy hotel for a few weeks.”
“Mr. Judson kind of swept her off her feet,” Nolan added.
“Snowed her with a lot of talk about his Hollywood connections. Said he was tight with Steven Spielberg.”
Coffey let out a low, rumbling chuckle. “So whaddya say? Should we haul ol’ Stevie in for questioning?”
“Probably not. A guy as rich as Judson can’t afford friends, is how I see it.”
“Girl was hysterical that maybe we’d call her daddy and tell him she’d been sleeping around,” Nolan said. “Couldn’t seem to get it through her head there’d been an honest-to-God murder. A real sheltered Suzie Sorority type.”
“So Judson balls her and heads back to his own room,” Coffey said. “And you believe her story?”
“We ran a check on her, and she seems to be who she says she is,” Nolan added. “Besides, she’s about five foot two with tiny hands and delicate fingernails. Whoever did Judson in was made of sterner stuff.”
“Guess I’ll have to trust your instincts.” Coffey shook his head. “I sure as hell hate to do that. What was Judson in town for, anyhow?” Coffey asked.
“Some kind of board meeting, his secretary in Chicago said.”
“Any nasty winds in the business world? A merger? A buyout? Cooked books? Stockholder feuds? A guy like Judson must have been a nonstop boardroom screwing machine. He must’ve done lots of billion-dollar humping, and not all of it consensual.”
“I talked to a couple of higher-ups at the local Apex Airlines office on the phone,” Clayton said. “According to them, Judson was just here to attend the meeting as a courtesy. Nobody admits to any arguments on deck. Everything was all roses, according to these guys.”
“Sure. They’ll never say anything else. Didn’t you talk to any of the secretaries? They’re the ones who know. Or maybe a disgruntled mid-level manager.”
“We’re gonna get to those this afternoon.”
“This afternoon? Why haven’t you done it already?”
Nolan and Clayton ignored this jab and finished up their summary. Earlier today they had again exasperated Gillaspie, the hotel manager, by presenting him with a subpoena for credit card information on the hotel’s several hundred guests, plus the hotel register. The precinct’s computer wizards would work the data over to check for any previous connection between other guests and Mr. Judson. Nobody honestly expected to find anything there.
It was becoming a high profile case. Judson was big news. National headlines and TV had put the L.A.P.D. in the ugly glare of a spotlight. So Nolan would go to the Windy City tomorrow, where he’d meet with Chicago homicide detectives to help interview Mr. G. K. Judson’s family, business associates, and friends (if any) to determine just how many people wanted Mr. G. K. Judson dead. Doubtless, the list would be formidable.
In the meantime, there was still plenty to check out in L.A. Nolan would pay a visit to Apex Airlines’ local office an
d see what else he could put together about Judson while Clayton talked to some of his contacts on the streets.
“Is there anything else you want?” Clayton asked.
“Yeah,” snapped Coffey. “An arrest. And get the fuck out of my office. Whaddya think this is, the detectives’ lounge? Get back to work.”
*
Marianne stood in the lobby of the Quenton Parks Hotel, waiting for the elevator. The shock she had experienced that morning, her fear of arrest, her paranoid elevator trip down to meet Renee, all seemed like memories from long ago.
So what did she feel now?
Sad.
Yes, that was the best word for it.
But why? The two and a half hours she had just spent at Renee’s condo had hardly been unpleasant. Most of the time had been spent in the expected small talk and reminiscence. What had been wrong with that?
Had anything been wrong?
The two of them had tried to find another time to meet during Marianne’s stay in L.A. But their lunch and dinner schedules just didn’t jibe for the next three days. Renee had invited her to an open house at her condo on Sunday night, but Marianne needed to head back to Santa Barbara before then. Would it be another year before they saw each other again?
Marianne got on the elevator. The doors closed. Alone, she rode up through the whispering tunnel. She kept seeing the memorabilia that cluttered Renee’s new condo, kept hearing the note of bittersweet longing in her friend’s voice. It seemed discouraging to be so unable to share Renee’s nostalgia. What had happened? When had “the good old days” passed so resolutely into the past that Marianne couldn’t even yearn for them?
Then she remembered. For her, “the good old days” had ended with a very specific incident. At one of Evan’s soirées, she had dropped a good dose of LSD, as had everybody else there. According to Renee and Evan, Marianne was rather stuffy about drugs. But on that particular night, a little reality altering had seemed like a good idea.
